gooned wrote: Your finish looks great ( I can recommend a concrete sealer NOT to use in a shop ) what if anything are you putting on it?

I've love to hear your thoughts on sealers. I was thinking of going a Lithium based harder/sealer route for the surface, but i know I need to wait about a month before I can do this. What happened on your set up?

Byron

I read way to much about expensive finishes going bad, peeling, not hardening etc. so I just went with a cheap sealer, unfortunately everything seems to go straight through it, so I guess i shoulda either painted it or got a slightly higher end product. At least it still cleans up pretty good (except where I drained the old 55 gas out it really left a mess from the splash)

I'll certainly have to read into this some more, and talk to some suppliers locally. There is some information out there, but it's hard to know what is good information and what is simply advertising. I just need to refrain from using the floor and getting it dirty until the concrete cures for the next month and I can put the sealer down.

I will do this one weekend James, I flew out again on Sunday at 3am for work, back Friday at midnight. The floor is so smooth that a good size ball bearing would roll anywhere if there was elevation. I was thinking of washing the floor, water doesn't lie either I'll have to get me squeegee home from the workshop.

Lots done, lest start with last weekend.
As I was away from the day after the cement was poured, I stripped the forms off one week later. For the most part it was fine. Thankfully the outside forms came off with little effort.
I then borrowed dads little John Deere tractor with a blade and pushed the pile of road base around to level out the driveway. Man it was nice to see that pile of gravel gone! And it was nice to see level ground I have to admit.

Next up was removal of the drain form/plug. This didn't come so easy. Turns out the oil on the sides of the form worked fine, but the bottom of the form held on for dear life. You can see how it pulled away at the red arrows.

I actually broke the form at a joint about 8' from one end (purple arrows). But I believe the last 12' will be reusable which is good because I'll need it down the drive way for a 10' wide section for water control later on. My first attempt at using a 10' long 2x6 as a lever ended badly. actually when this broke it hurt my back. A week later it's still got a kink that I'm working out. However the piece of roll cage 1 1/2" DOM did work much better - but I bent that one as well in the process.

The air bubbles that were at the surface of the mold were dense. Not sure if more vibration would have helped or not. Dad was telling me to limit vibration as it can knock the forms apart, but I think I could have done a little more to help prevent this. I did buy some quick set mortor to fill these over before they get dirty. That'll be a job for tomorrow.

What did work out well was the drain connection from the drain trough. Only a tiny thin piece of concrete had to be broken away, so the plug of rags placed to stop concrete from going down he pipe was not needed. But you know that if I hadn't put that rag in there - it would have been needed.
I was quite happy with this part.

On Monday the sales guy from the Smart Garage Door came by, and noted that I would have to fir up the width of two more studs on the one end of the bay door opening in order to mount the chain pull. I opted out of the electric motor as I felt it was something that would go wrong one day.

So on Wednesday, I bought some 5/8” good one side plywood and some more studs. Dear ole dad came over, and we got to work adding in studs and sheeting the area where the door was going to be mounted to. You’ll notice how we cut the corners out of the sheets of plywood. Not the most efficient use of the wood, but from an engineering point of view, these L shapes will significantly strengthen this part of the structure should we ever have a shaker that counted.

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I also had to bury a Simpson Strong Tie, so I took multiple photos of it at each stage and marked it out. This marking was for photo purposes only as I then seethed over the works. Here it is.

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The last job of the day was to fir up the steel door. I’m telling you this was a serious PITA!. It took hours to accomplish this task, and at 9pm we leaned the door up to the hole, put a couple blocks in place to steady it and threw in the towel for the evening. We were both happy that it just fit the hole the first time. But we weer both done at that point. It had been a long day.

Yesterday I went to General Paint and picked up some paint, rollers, a tray and a nice extension rod as I'm pretty sure I'll be using this some more soon!

At any rate I got a little more expensive exterior semi gloss white for the good one side plywood surface. As the door guys were coming the next day, I cheated and did not prime this area. But I did manage to get two coats on by 8pm.

The rest of the time I spend squaring up the man door, working up the hinge side, and leveling ans squaring up the rest of the door absolutely filling it full of screws from all directions. The time was well spent. The door is sealed against the footings with acoustical sealant, and the door is absolutely square in it's jamb, and level/flush with the building exterior so that siding/flashing won't be an issue.

Today was another good day moving forward on the project. the roll up door arrived, and more importantly it came with two guys with the equipment to install it.It didn't take them long. While the prepped a few pieces for the installation, I changed the door handle on the man door. The handle mechinism that was on the door was a grade 1 commercial lever, but it was a broom closet style, one that always locks behind you and you can't change it. It's super high quality commercial grade, but it would be a PITA I am sure. I can not stand here now and think of the number of times I will lock myself out of the garage in the future... not my game, time to buck up!

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The equivalent grade (read strong) handle with an unlocking feature was worth $260! Ouch. That's more than I paid for the used steel door! But I guess it's money well spent. A decent quality lever style residential handle which is really less than 1/4 the product was $150. they are known to not last that long, and I was told this commercial one would not wear out for 20 years in a commercial application. So for me, I'll never wear the thing out.

This hoist made their job super simple. but they had a hell of a grunt carrying the door from the trailer just outside and into the building!

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In the end these guys did a very nice job. I have heard a lot about these doors, and the company was very good to deal with. They honored my quote from last October, and even took another $100 off when I talked nicely about my fathers garage door which came from the same company - awesome!. But it was still a $3700 door. I trust it will last the duration of the building itself.

Here is how it looks tonight with the insulation on the door and the man door in place. Suddenly I have a semi secure building - at least oie that is closed in. That does feel good.